What We Do With It Ch. 03

~Please note: The lyrics are not mine, they appear courtesy of Norah Jones' marvelous talent~

Back with Jada walking through the dazzling light show of the labyrinth she praises me for my ability to learn how to navigate myself so quickly, and I in turn am telling her about the ghost I met at the hospital and what he told me of the trial I am to face in the near future. We arrive after a time in my bedroom , I look around and then at her with an odd expression on my face. Certainly I wasn't expecting to come back here, Jada can tell this from my face and she gestures me to sit, I sink onto my bed, and she takes the chair at my desk turning around to look at me.

"The pain is something you feel you are ready face this soon after being separated from your body ?"

All I can do is nod, she stands and suddenly the serious of events rolls through my mind another montage of my breathing twenty years.

Four year old me is waiting bundled up in her winter coat. Today is the day my father comes to visit me. He doesn't usually but that doesn't mean I don't wait all the same. The door bell rings and I feel the excitement I felt sixteen years ago, innocent anticipation only a little child could have. The younger me bursts through the front door of the tiny apartment shouting an over-joyed greeting to…the paperboy. The child me is crestfallen, and I feel that inside all over again and seeing this scene replayed made me remember why things like this stuck with you through life.

Seven years after this, and I've moved up north to a new suburban place and school leaving everything I ever knew behind me. I'm walking through my front door after a strange unremarkable first day. I remember thinking that I'd done well of just sinking into my surroundings until my grandmother walks past me and pulls a sign off my back. Another milestone in rejection and disappointment for me.

Same father, eleven years later and I'm not getting out of bed for something it'd be better that I didn't go to. He's not understanding this…and he's ripping the posters off of my walls. Fury is being reborn inside me and I'm out of my bed and screaming at him, and he's slapping me. Inside my heart on this other plane I am sinking further and further into this montage of my past agonies.

Sixteen now and on the telephone with a boyfriend, I feel how much I love him and I'm grinning as I pick up the phone talking in my happy lively way until I stop suddenly, my face falling eyes wide listening to what he's saying. I'm not his soul mate, he can't be with me anymore. Very quickly I flash through the achingly terrible fighting that occurred between he and I, and the six months of healing that followed. With focus on the rough spots. I'm beginning to get this feeling in my chest like my hearts becoming almost to full, re-feeling all this at once.

The sadness of my life I think now, that it's over while still scarring in it's own way could not be nearly as bad as others I've known in my life, or just the standard of bad itself. Now with eternity sitting out before me I contemplate this and look up at Jada from across my bedroom. She says nothing, and her face is unreadable, at once she rises and leaves me alone with my thoughts.

Turning around I stare at my semi-neatly made bed and think back on the sobbing nights I'd spent here. Almost defiantly I shake my head and remember the wonderful nights and days I'd also spent here, laying back across my comforter when my door opens suddenly. I've forgotten myself caught by such surprise that I give the man a huge welcoming grin as he stares right through me at my undoubtedly cold and empty bed, sighing heavily I stand before him, watching him look right through me. If only there was some small way I could tell him I was still here for him.
He enters my room and sits in the same Jada did, his eyes roving over my cluttered and messy walls, smiling a bit at my collection of photographs on one section of my wall. I sit on my pillows, leaning back and watch him for a moment before looking questionably at my stereo.

Casting a sideways glance at the man, who is still looking at the photos smiling in a sort of sad, sort of fond way. I look back to the CD player and center my energies reached a spectral finger out the machine comes to life. Guilty I pull back seeing him stiffen and cast a speculative eye at my current area, I wait a moment longer and Jada does not bust through my wall with some reprimand, I mean it's not like she told me I couldn't be doing this.

My eyes never left his startled face as the slow blues sounding music filled the room. The song floated around in the air, almost as ghostly as I was. Sitting there I smiled sadly at how precise those lyrics knew what they were talking about.

"My heart is drenched in wine
But you'll be on my mind
Forever"

That's when Jada came in, and she looked almost pissed off. My stereo shut off immediately, the man was left alone sitting there, and I was dragged by my guide back to the labyrinth.